Please get your car out of our dining room!

Some years ago, when returning home, I saw a group of police cars and emergency vehicles at the edge of my development. I was turned away and told to find another route. As I neared our townhouse from the opposite direction, an officer approached and asked for my street address. When I responded, he said, "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, sir."
Yes, someone had crashed into the rear of our home. I remember being relieved that I wasn't home when it happened. I went inside to survey the damage. The driver, thankfully, was not critically injured and was on his way to the hospital. Most of the car, however, was in our dining room; the front bumper perched on my desk, and the rear one hovering over our patio.
The car had been on an unlikely journey. When the driver passed out, his car swerved across a grassy island and two lanes going in the opposite direction. It then started up a hill, knocked down a couple of small trees in the process. The car then started downhill, between two large trees, and ployed into our townhouse. During this little jaunt, the driver's foot remained, as they say, with "the metal to the pedal". After crashing through the back wall, the car pushed the dining room table against the opposite wall, took out most of the wall between the kitchen and the living room, bounced the piano a few feet from its original position, and came to a halt with its bumper resting on my desk.
Coincidentally, one of our neighbors heard the commotion, rushed over, sized up the situation, crawled into dining room, opened the car door and turned off the ignition. If there was a hero in this little scenario, it was surely this gentleman. An eye witness reported he scarcely believed his eyes as the car crossed two lanes of traffic, become airborne and narrowly missed him on the sidewalk. Still another neighbor heard the crash, thought it was a bomb, and rushed her kids to the basement.
Eventually, our little drama attracted the attention of the media. As I stood at the center of this turmoil, besieged by emergency responders, lawyers, contractors and other interested parties, a lady TV reporter approached me. She asked for an interview. I replied that since this was obviously an "open house", fire away! Nancy arrived just in time to share the limelight. Our interview was shown on local TV later that evening. For a newspaper account of the accident, click here.

But here's the rest of the story. Several days later, we learned that the driver was Bob, a person Nancy and I had known before our marriage. In a further twist, my second wife Vicki and I had lived on the same block as Bob's family, a couple of decades earlier. It was like a re-union!
Looking back, it wasn't so bad. We actually had some good fortune as a result of the crash, e.g., a new hardwood floor, and a sliding glass door (where the car had left a large hole ). A few short years later, Nancy was lamenting the condition of our kitchen. I suggested that we find someone to drive into the side of our townhouse, and hope for the best.